Gizmodo does statistics on HD DVD vs Blu-ray... so who won?

In a highly mathematical exercise, Gizmodo has trawled the high definition disc reviews over at High-Def Digest - about 300 in all) and averaged all the ratings they've given out. They then put it in a pretty graph that concluded - statistically - that Blu-ray wins slightly on audio quality, but loses out on video quality, standard definition extras, and high definition extras.

But how could this be? Spec sheets claim the same audio codecs are supported on Blu-ray and HD DVD. Why would one format sound better? And why is HD DVD kicking major Blu-ray bonus content ass? ISN'T IT ALL IDENTICAL EXCEPT FOR THE BOX COLOR??

I expect this to level out over time. Hd-dvd made the first move with interactivity, but Blu-ray is following suit - I don' know if Hd-dvd has any sort of patent on their interactivity, but if not then Blu-ray seem to be sorting all of this out. Shame it didn't have it with it's first releases.

Well this is very interesting, I'm just going to wait until prices go down, and that the technology is better. I remember when the DVD players were like 300 bucks and then 2 or 3 years later, they were at 100 bucks, and not only that but the DVDs had more to them then when they first came out.

In the grand scheme of things, those bars aren't the ones that matter considering they are so even. They missed out the the 2 most important bars: Movie support and storage space. Each of which blu-ray punches HD-DVD into the ground, into a soft mushy pulp

There are already 3hr+ 1080p Dolby 5.1 movies on HD-DVD and still space for extras such as a standard DVD copy and multiple sound tracks. I don't think extra space on Blu-ray makes a much difference is not like its 10 times the size.

Maybe HD-DVD won't have the space to hold DTS-HD audio in addition to current data. But have you seen how much DTS-HD audio equiptment costs !! Only 15% of users have Dolby 5.1 setups so how long will it take to get sensibly priced HD audio hardware.

At worse extras may have to supplied on a second HD-DVD or a double sided HD-DVD which users would be quite happy with.

You mention that Blu-Ray doesn't have more titles and you reference amazon in your list of stores that has more HD-DVD titles but you must not have counted them recently because that's changed. You should check out http://www.eproductwars.com... to see just what Blu-Ray has to offer over and above HD-DVD in Amazon.

while you are right about the movie support issue, which is what really matters, the space comment is not correct. they make 51gb hd-dvd discs now. sure blu-ray has showed huge 200+gb tech demos, but they're tech demos, and not something anyone can buy, for a long time, atleast until holo media is available. which brings up the feature that is most important yet you left out... price. 51gb hd-dvd disc costs less to replicate than a 50gb blu-ray disc. that's all that matters. well, besides studio support.

While HD-DVD has come out with a 51GB triple layer disk, it has not been approved by the DVD forum yet. They plan to get it approved sometime this year for production. This new triple layer 51GB HD-DVD disk won't play in ANY of the current HD-DVD players. This will mean that the install base of the HD-DVD community will successfully be split by this new disk. The DVD forum would never allow that at such a crucial time in the format's life. This coupled with the fact that HD-DVD is currently being outsold by Blu-Ray by about 2:1 should mean that the DVD forum will be hard pressed to not only approve this new disk but will also be hard pressed to continue to support HD-DVD entirely. If anything this new triple layer disk will only see the light of day in the hands of end-users in the form of yet another backup medium.

By the way, who said that this new triple layer disk will be cheaper than the dual layer Blu-Ray disk? I call foul play on that claim. Show me something that says this. If anything I can show you how Blu-Ray disks are cheaper per GB than HD-DVD disks to manufacture. http://wesleytech.com/blu-r...

strictly talking about the movie industry, blu-ray has far, far more movies coming out for it then HD-DVD. There was an article that stated blu-ray has more movies coming out this month then HD-DVD does in the whole year. Blu-ray has far more studios backing it and the amount and range of movies is the most important thing to the consumer. Nothing else matters since they are so similar to HD-DVD. Thats why Blu-ray sales are beating HD-DVD sales by nearly 3:1, even though HD-DVD launched before blu-ray. And for space issues, i was talking about general computer usage and games, not movies. And bluray has far more space to play around with then HD-DVD. Is there any poignant STAND OUT points that makes HD-DVD worth investing in? uhhh...

PS. I think companies and people in general want to see the battle over as soon as possible, it gets stupid with 2 media formats nuttin' it out. And blu-ray seems to be the early succesor, so everyone's rootin it to win. That electronics company in australia doesn't even sell HD-DVD products, only Blu-ray. And DELL has made a deal to install Blu-ray drives into their laptops in the future. HD-DVD is dying, there's no reason it should stay and it would be a pain to everyone if it did stay

I cant agree more with your assesment kodki.. Sorry if I misspelled .. The storage space is ok but really not necessary... The Blu-Ray discs have 50gig right but we still see dvd's with 9.5 gigs being made dont we.. So really I doesnt make a lot of difference. Beats it into a bloody pulp?? You do know that " First of all, due to their complicated manufacturing needs, the production yield rates for single-layer 25 gb Blu-ray discs have been rather poor, and dual-layer 50 gb discs apparently have such a high failure rate that so far no titles have been released in that configuration. On the other hand, while HD DVD only offers 15 gb capacity per disc layer, the majority of that format’s releases have been on dual-layer 30 gb discs. What this means is that, up to this point, HD DVD has in fact offered higher storage capacity. " So you see Bloody pulp isnt all that bloody to me.

You say that storage space is not necessary because DVD's with 9GB of space are being made? That makes no sense, man. There are still vinyl records being made today so does that mean that DVD's aren't necessary?

Then you go on to say that production yield rates are keeping movies from coming out on 50GB disks? You did know that Black Hawk Down, Casino Royale, Click, The Descent, Pearl Harbor, Pirates of the Carribbean 1 and 2, and Talladega Nights are all movies that either have already been released on 50GB Blu-Ray disks or will be when they've been released right? I guess not. What this means is that you don't know what you're talking about when it comes to high def movies.

But yeah. Even dual-layer DVDs have trouble storing Standard-Definition movies in high quality (and that's WITH improved compression). The average movies now are between 6 and 7.5 GB at 480p widescreen resolution. Considering that HD movies are 5x that resolution it's obvious that you need at least 40GB to do a movie justice at 1080p. And that's not even taking into account the jump to uncompressed audio.

Toshiba knew this already, which is why they developed triple-layer HD-DVDs so early on. Even then, it can't match a dual-layer BD-ROM. (45GB vs. 50GB) Too bad HD-DVDs cost more to produce than Blu-ray discs since it takes at least a dual-layer HD-DVD to match the capacity of a single-layer Blu-ray disc. It's no wonder BD-ROM has more studio support; cost determines a lot.

The Sony camp and HollyWood had better hope the "All the studios back Blu-ray" sale's pitch works fast and early on before the consumers learn to much about the realalities what these divices are and their point. It's possible to see only a few studio's backing HD-DVD in the future yet having 80% of people that invested in a HD players owning HD-DVD players.

Picture quality is more important than Audio by far and all the other feature's will appeal to movie buffs as their the ones most likely investing in these new technoligies, is this PS3 driven Spike in BR sale's really translate into a never ending trend?, probably not Sony needs to move the PS3 off the shelves before PS3 has a lasting and consistant impact in helping BR.

What would these morons know Blu Ray can do 1080p what are they talking about there just so dumb on not admitting that it has better quality on audio and HD these guy's don't know nothing about HD for crap who hired these lame brains.